15 years ago, I started keeping a journal of sorts - Not an accounting of navel gazing feelings, day to day events nor hopes and aspirations but the pages were set to record people who came to our apartment to share meals. First entry was May 2, ’95, my brother Carl and I had our first meal in a new apartment – Gumbo, Rice and beer. There is a note that Oregon Book Award winning poet Matthew Dickman didn’t show up. Which unlike the recently deceased author J.D. Salinger, Matthew was not only invited, he said he would be there.
Matthew was there the next week for Carl’s birthday and many times after, there is factual documentation, because of what is known as ‘the book’. The book is a record of not only who showed up and what we ate, but the occasional bit of conversation that was worthy of recording…For instance, In 1997 it was pointed out the only thing I was good at making were generalizations - it would have been a shame if that little bon mot was forgotten over time. On Feb 23, 2003 Red Beans and Rice and pecan tarts were served to 20 people; in April of 2000 there was carrot ginger soup; in 1998 there was Easter lasagna, there were many Thanksgiving celebration.
For most of its life the book has captured the happenings of Soupnight. For most of its decade long run Soupnight was a monthly event where friends gathered to eat a casual meal, drink good beer and not very memorable wine and enjoy a night of company without TV. It was a long run, fondly remembered, not only because we recorded the event in a spiral bound book, but because how often to you set aside a little time to see your friends and share a meal?
Tonight, Carl and my sister-in-common-law (if they ever get married, I will loose my lame-oft-repeated play on words) are hosting a mini-revival of Soupnight. Corn Soup, my contribution is a couple of Meyer lemon tarts. And I am pretty excited to go eat soup after work. I am looking forward to seeing friends, having a beer and talking over the din of conversation. I don’t want to make something more of the night of soup than it is…
People will occasionally make the argument that, more specifically, the making of food is capital A – Art. The art-food conversation, like most of the conversations about ‘what is really art’, only happen after the convivialities of meal, wine and conversation have been unleashed. As a producer of some pretty good meals, I am not sure that food is art. It isn’t the short-lived nature of the endeavor – art can be temporary, never lasting long enough to make it into a museum or to be hung on a wall and stared at with reverence. I just don’t think elevating cooking to an art form makes it any better. Cooking is a craft, learned, practiced, improved upon; there is a deep honor in craft – it need not be apologized for or elevated to something it is not.
Tonight, a gathering where if everything goes right, if the food is good, if the dessert is enjoyable, if the guests are a good enough match that everyone feels comfortable, if there is conversation and laughter that people walk away feeling the world is a better place, full of possibility, then we will have achieved our own little Babette’s Feast – Now there is a work of Art.
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